Thought to have been lost for more than 80 years, an original message from Germany describing the terms of the Island’s surrender in 1940 has been found. Here, Channel Islands Specialists’ Society member and author ROGER HARRIS outlines its history and significance
A GERMAN ultimatum for Jersey’s surrender has been found after 85 years. Among the most important German documents relating to the Island’s Occupation, the ultimatum – which had been thought lost for over eight decades – was found in the US by Roger E Harris, a postal historian member of the Channel Islands Specialists’ Society. Below, Roger Harris provides details about the history of the document and the reasons for its importance.
AT 5.40am on 1 July 1940, three pouches trailing red and blue streamers were dropped over Jersey by a German aircraft. Two pouches landed in St Helier and the third landed at the Airport. They contained envelopes addressed “On the Governeur of the Isle of Jersey” [sic] and each of them was a two-page typed ultimatum itemising the terms of surrender for the Island.
Jersey Airport controller Charles Roche found a letter dropped at the Airport and telephoned the then Bailiff, Alexander Coutanche, who ordered him to keep it and remain at his post, as he had already been given the two dropped in St Helier. The German ultimatum demanded that by 7am on 2 July 1940, white flags and white crosses should be prominently displayed in the town and at the Airport to indicate total surrender. The States ordered a translation of the ultimatum be printed and posted immediately and a translation appeared on the front page of that afternoons’ Evening Post newspaper.
At 7am the following morning, Oberleutnant Richard Kern, the 25-year-old pilot of a Dornier Do 17z, flew over Jersey and observed the displayed surrender signs. He promptly landed at the Airport and was the first German to “capture” Jersey. He was met by Mr Roche, who informed him that the Island was ready to accept the terms that had been set out. Oberleutnant Kern returned to base to report his actions and, in the afternoon, eight Dornier Do 17z aircraft and two Junkers Ju 52/3m troop transporters landed at the Airport with German assault troops and Luftwaffe officers led by Hauptmann Gussek. The German Occupation of Jersey had begun.
Mr Roche had kept the Airport letter and endorsed the envelope in pencil with the location, time and date of dropping but, in the heat of the moment, he initialled and dated it 1/6/40 rather than 1/7/40. Order five of the ultimatum demanded that “Representatives of the Authorities must stay at the Airport until the occupation” – so, obeying Mr Coutanche’s order, Mr Roche remained on duty to await the arrival of the German troops.
Mr Roche was not a Channel Islander; he was an Englishman born in 1897, and a retired First World War RAF Lieutenant. His previous RAF career should have rung alarm bells with the Germans but, despite it, they foolishly kept him in his crucial role managing the Airport, where he was credited with destroying at least 28 German aircraft and crew by cutting the runway grass to an unsafe short level, so that aircraft would skid and crash on landing. The Germans remained unaware of his sabotage regime, but it was nevertheless curtailed in 1942 when he and his wife, Mary, were deported to Biberach internment camp in Germany, along with most of the other English-born residents in Jersey.
Mr and Mrs Roche were in their late 40s when they were deported, but they must have been in ill health because Mrs Roche was repatriated to England on the first Red Cross mercy repatriation via neutral Sweden of the elderly and infirm in September 1944, and her husband followed on the second in March 1945. They were reunited in England and were eventually able to return to Jersey after the Liberation, when Charles resumed his old job as Airport controller until his retirement in 1957.
The three German ultimatum letters were the first and probably the most important documents of the Occupation; they can also be regarded as the first airmail of the German Occupation, but none has ever been on public display. The two dropped on St Helier and handed to the Bailiff remained in the Coutanche archive, but the history of the letter dropped at the Airport is more obscure.
When Mr Coutanche told Mr Roche that he did not need the letter dropped at the Airport as he had already been given the two dropped in town, Mr Roche may not have realised its significance. He is unlikely to have taken it with him into internment, but there is no record of him giving it to someone for safe keeping or hiding it until his return to Jersey. It has always been assumed that it was lost.
Last year in the US, two parts of a charity auction were held. The Alfred F Kugel military postal history collection, a philatelic collection of worldwide military mail dating from the late 1800s to modern times, valued at several million dollars, went under the hammer. There were only two lots from Jersey in the auction; one was a genuine set of the “swastika Jersey 1940” overprinted King George VI stamps, and the other, a poorly photographed envelope that purported to have contained the German ultimatum dropped on 1 July 1940.
Roger E Harris, postal historian member of the Channel Islands Specialists’ Society and author of several Channel Islands historical research books, recognised that the envelope might be the missing Roche letter and attempted to authenticate it before the auction closed. He obtained good photographs of the envelope and its contents, and approached various authorities in Jersey who might have seen the other two letters.
Damien Horn, owner of The Channel Islands Military Museum, had seen one of the letters complete with its pouch and ribbons that had been kept by Mr Coutanche, and he thought a second one was also in the Lord Coutanche collection.
Georgie Bois, archives officer for Jersey Heritage, confirmed that they held the Lord Coutanche Collection containing one of the letters with the original pouch, but explained that the collection had not yet been catalogued, and that the letter was not on display. As the collection is not catalogued, this raises the possibility that the collection holds both letters dropped on St Helier.
Nobody was able to offer Mr Harris any more information about the third letter, and the auction house knew no more about its provenance, although it was thought Mr Kugel had acquired the letter from a German collector in the 1980s along with the swastika over-printed stamps.
Mr Harris – who is the author of, among other titles, Islanders Deported Parts 1 and 2 and Pioneer Aviation in the Channel Islands Volumes One and Two – managed to acquire the letter in the American auction in September last year, and displayed it at the CISS’s 75th Anniversary Display at the Royal Philatelic Society in London on 9 January and again during the CISS Weekend visit to Guernsey in April.
A very important German Occupation document and first airmail letter has at last seen the light of day.
One of Germany’s Occupation ultimatum letters – lost for more than 80 years – has resurfaced
